Going Beyond the Food Pantry
The Certificate in Food, Faith, and Environmental Justice prepares Divinity students to help churches address crises of food access and inequalityBy Rebekah Ramlow
Many churches have some form of food ministry, whether they host a regular food drive, offer free meals to the community, or support local food banks. Even with these ongoing efforts to feed the hungry, however, few churches have conversations about food access inequality or environmental justice. Duke Divinity School wants to equip ministers to have those conversations, and the Certificate in Food, Faith, and Environmental Justice, now available to residential M.Div. and M.T.S. students, is designed to train future church leaders to address these issues.
Through classroom engagement with faculty including Norbert Wilson, professor of food, economics, and community, and practical ministry experiences including field education and conferences, Duke Divinity students can be equipped to help churches and congregations deepen their commitments to food and environmental justice.
“We need thoughtful leaders to integrate our charitable efforts to see how we contribute to justice,” Wilson said. “Beginning these conversations at Duke Divinity is critical. But conversations are just the beginning. Graduates need to carry these conversations into the larger society. These conversations need to become praxis and justice-making work.”
“Beginning these conversations at Duke Divinity is critical. But conversations are just the beginning.”
— Dr. Norbert Wilson
“Beginning these conversations at Duke Divinity is critical. But conversations are just the beginning.”
— Dr. Norbert Wilson
God’s Provision from the Land
Andrew Lauber
Current M.Div. student Andrew Lauber is pursuing the Certificate in Faith, Food, and Environmental Justice, with vocational interests in working at the intersection of Christian belief and ecological concerns, including food justice. Working directly with the land was part of Lauber’s summer field education placement at the Society of St. Andrew (SoSA), a nonprofit ministry that brings people together to harvest healthy food, reduce food waste, and offer nourishment to hungry neighbors.
On a particularly hot summer morning, Lauber met his field education supervisors, Michael Binger and Olivia Warren, at a small farm in rural North Carolina to glean blueberries. Hours of picking led to a few small buckets and baskets full of berries, but Lauber was grateful for the hard work. “Many people can’t afford fruit and might not eat it all summer,” he said. “To be able to pick blueberries and share them with people who might not have them otherwise, it’s a real joy. To be put in this placement was truly a blessing from God.”
The field education placement with SoSA provided Lauber with a place to follow a scriptural call to feed the hungry. “The Hebrew Old Testament and Greek New Testament are replete with God’s instructions to feed the hungry,” he said, “and some of Jesus’ most impactful moments involve eating with the marginalized people of society.”
Lauber cites the story of Daniel and his friends standing up to the king as meaningful to his calling. They show the king that eating things grown in the ground—things from God—is the healthier way. “God created us with finite bodies that have material needs. It’s an inextricable part of being human, to be hungry. But God provides,” said Lauber, who experienced God’s providence firsthand this summer.
Working with SoSA volunteers across the state, he worked in fields after farmers finished their commercial harvest to pick, dig, and gather the tons of good produce left behind. The organization typically rescues more than 5 million pounds of food each year.
Binger said, “This job has proven God’s abundance to me. God has built into the land enough to feed everyone. All that’s in it for us, is to find the ways to get it where it needs to be. What we do is about the work of God, and just participating in it.”
“When I Was Hungry, You Fed Me.”
Professor Wilson teaches that “the Scriptures are replete with examples of people of faith caring for the earth and feeding one another.” The call from God is clear, he continues: “God calls humans to be stewards of the earth and to care for folks in need of food,” to take care of God’s people.
Lauber and his field education supervisors all cited Matthew 25 as the clearest command from God to do this work. In the text, the Son of Man declares: “For I was hungry, and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”
As Warren noted, so often Jesus taught in parables and implications. The few times he spoke in the imperative was to command: “feed the hungry, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger”—the clearest way to be the hands and feet of Jesus.
“This job has proven God’s abundance to me. God has built into the land enough to feed everyone. All that’s in it for us, is to find the ways to get it where it needs to be. What we do is about the work of God, and just participating in it.”
— Michael Binger
“This job has proven God’s abundance to me. God has built into the land enough to feed everyone. All that’s in it for us, is to find the ways to get it where it needs to be. What we do is about the work of God, and just participating in it.”
— Michael Binger
Bridging the Gap: From Farm to Church
Maggie Kennedy
Maggie Kennedy, M.Div.’24, feels called to ministry in the local church. Although her summer field education placement at the Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI) was a bit out of her comfort zone, it challenged her to think differently about ministry. “A little bit of discomfort is important for growth,” she said.
RAFI works to connect farmers and faith communities to promote a more sustainable and equitable food system. They hope to encourage a more diverse and interconnected network engaged in food systems, where the local community has accountability to farmers and agricultural workers.
Kennedy’s role at RAFI involved working with Come to the Table, a ministry supported by The Duke Endowment. Come to the Table helps get food into communities by connecting farmers to churches that buy produce, have onsite food pantries, host farmer’s markets, and more.
She said, “It’s a dual-pronged need for mindfulness to think about where our food comes from, having that connection to the earth and God, and who it comes from, the people who are farming.”
For Come to the Table, Kennedy worked on a podcast episode with a local pastor about how churches can collaborate directly with farmers. “I really learned the importance of conversation in storytelling,” she shared. “I thought I knew where the story was going, but I just had to listen, be present, and let the person speak for themselves. We touch on listening and learning in the classroom, but this was a hands-on example of how a story can unfold from listening and asking questions.”
Her work with RAFI encouraged Kennedy to think about the church’s role and responsibility in food equity and environmental justice, leading her to pursue the Certificate in Faith, Food, and Environmental Justice.
“It’s a dual-pronged need for mindfulness to think about where our food comes from, having that connection to the earth and God, and who it comes from, the people who are farming.”
— Maggie Kennedy
“It’s a dual-pronged need for mindfulness to think about where our food comes from, having that connection to the earth and God, and who it comes from, the people who are farming.”
— Maggie Kennedy
Starting the Conversation
“Climate change is pressing upon us, and food access issues continue to plague us. Thus, as leaders of faith communities, we have a responsibility to do this work,” said Dr. Wilson.
Kennedy wants to do the work by starting conversations in the local church around food justice, something she finds to be currently lacking. “Scripture is made up of works written in an agricultural society, so it cannot be separated from the idea of food,” she said. “In the 21st century, we often don’t fully embrace the metaphors of Scripture because we are so out of touch with agricultural practices.”
Most churches participate in food ministries in practice, but not always in conversation or Bible Study, Kennedy said. She acknowledged that it’s difficult to know where to start the conversation about food inequality or the climate crisis because everyone in the church has a different stance. She believes starting the conversation around a ministry they’re already involved in is important—something she feels called to do. “I’m interested in being on the ministry side so that I can help start conversations from the inside on things like food access or creation care. If churches are having those conversations, they are more likely to engage with food-focused ministries like RAFI.”
Kennedy, and organizations like RAFI, want to help congregations understand that food access is biblical, and when studying Scripture, conversations around food and environmental justice must be had in the church.
“Climate change is pressing upon us, and food access issues continue to plague us. Thus, as leaders of faith communities, we have a responsibility to do this work.”
— Dr. Norbert Wilson
The Certificate in Faith, Food, and Environmental Justice is for students seeking training and preparation for engaging faithfully in environmental justice work, agricultural production, healthy food access and food systems, creation care ministries, land use issues, policy advocacy, and environmental management. The context of such work might be congregational ministry, nonprofit work, farming, or governmental agencies.
It is also for students who may have a more general interest in addressing the array of urgent challenges related to the ecological crisis, rural precariousness, resource conflicts, animal suffering, climate change, environmental racism, and industrial agriculture.
Alongside access to some of the leading environmental theologians in the world, the certificate provides opportunities for learning from and engaging with the broader university and the surrounding community. Students can take courses at the Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke Farm, and the World Food Policy Center at the Sanford School of Public Policy.
North Carolina is an ideal location to undertake this kind of formation, as it is not only a vibrant center of the food and faith movement, with numerous farms connected to the Divinity School, it is also the birthplace of the environmental justice movement, with its roots in the rural black church.